exciting a general insurrection, which would extend to Austrian Poland, lest the Emperor of Austria should take umbrage at his conduct, and advance his army on his rear.

All these natural impediments to the completion of his grand design," the towering genius of Napoleone did not stoop to consider; buoyed up by vanity, inflated with success, inflexible in his purpose, and resolved on the attainment of his end, at whatever cost, he rushes impetuously forward, and acts as if he thought that victory was not figuratively, but literally, chained to his car. Hence it is that he is, at this moment, placed in a situation of such extreme peril, that nothing but the most extraordinary infatuation, the most stupid insensibility, on the part of the leading Powers of Europe, can possibly save him from destruction. He presumes on that infatuation, on that insensibility. His presumption, it must be confessed, is not unjustified by past events; but it is to be hoped that the same grounds for it will not always subsist, and that he will soon be plunged into that abyss to which his boundless oppression, and his enormous crimes, should long since have consigned him.

. If the feeble mind of the Austrian Emperor would enable him to appre ciate the advantage of his present situation, and to discharge that duty which he owes to himself, to his subjects, and to posterity, he might be come the political saviour of Europe. We cannot think so meanly of him, as to admit the supposition that his present inactivity is the effect of a just resentment for the perfidious conduct of Prussia, under similar circumstances, in 1805. We rather ascribe it to a timid policy, a too acute sense of past disasters, and a mistaken prudence. His experience of the uniform conduct of Buonaparte, and the recent fate of Prussia, should convince him not only of the inutility of such forbearance, but of its dangerous and even fatal tendency. So long as the Usurper shall dread his interfe rence with the present war, so long will he flatter him with expectations, and allure him by promises. But the moment the necessity for such affected mildness shall cease to exist; the moment he shall have either subdued or pacified his present enemies; he will issue his imperious mandate to Austria, and the first refusal of implicit obedience will be the signal of attack. We have a better opinion of the gallant people who are subject to the House of Austria, particularly of the brave Hungarians, than to believe that they will fall an easy prey to any assailant, however fierce or however potent. But certainly Austria, left, with contracted territory, and diminished resources, alone to oppose the whole power of France and her numerous Vassals, will have considerable difficulty in supporting the contest, and will be exposed to extreme danger.

It is on this system of separate warfare, if it may be so called, that Buonapart; depends for the establishment of an universal monarchy. He has laboured ever since he seized the reins of government in France, and alas! but too successfully laboured, to enforce the agent maxim, divide et impera ;—to break all subsisting alliances between the different Powers; to detach each from the other, so as to insulate them all; and to excite endless jealousy and mistrust between them. It was to the success of such efforts that he was indebted for his safety first at the battle of Austerlitz, and afterwards, at that of Auerstadt in the former case he succeeded in preventing the interposition of Prussia; in the latter, that of Austria; and if the Princes of Europe will continue to be dupes to so paltry an arti b 2

fice;

fice; if, blind to their own interest and to their own safety, they will suffer personal prejudices and petty animosities to deter them from a cooperation for the general good,-they MUST FERISH, and he MUST Unwilling to unite, and unable to oppose him singly, they will, inevitably-unless the hand of Providence interfere to prevent it fall one by one; annihilated by his rage, or tolerated by his mercy.

TRIUMPH.

It is, then, perfectly clear, not only that a principle of self-preservation should lead the Austrian Emperor to take a decided part in the present war; but that this is the precise moment when he can do so with effect; since by acting in concert with the Russians, a plan of operations might be formed, which could not fail of success, and which would enable the Allies to rescue Europe from the degrading shackles which have been so long imposed upon her. The French army is now considerably weakened by the joint operation of want and disease; pressed vigorously in front by the Russians, with an Austrian force, under the command of that judicious and able General, the Archduke Charles, hanging on its flanks or on its rear, it must be first dispersed, and afterwards destroyed. Previous to the battle of Austerlitz, the King of Prussia was solemnly warned by a Writer in this Work, that if he suffered that opportunity for rescuing the salvation of Europe to escape, he would never recover it; he was farther told, that he vainly flattered himself to escape the fangs of the Usurper by forbearance or concession; that such conduct might answer for a time, but that it would only ensure him the notable privilege of being one of the last victims of his rage. The event has too fatally verified the prediction. To the Emperor of Austria we now use the same admonitory language; if he treat it with contempt; if, uninstructed by experience, he persist in neglecting its dictates, he, like his Prussian neighbour, will fall unpitied and despised. But, it is to be hoped that he will not be guilty of such fatal neglect; and that the only sentiment which he will suffer to prevail in his mind, will be the desire of proving himself worthy of the elevated station in which it has pleased the Supreme Disposer of Thrones and of Kingdoms, to place him; by showing himself superior to all feelings of resentment and jealousy, when called upon to assert the rights of his insulted sovereignty, and to defend the claims of subjugated states, struggling for freedom against the general oppressors of the human

race.

France, meanwhile, exhibits the strange spectacle of a military state, kept in subjection solely by the bayonet and the sword, deserted by her Conqueror, and drained of her troops, to carry on a war in a remote quarter of the Continent. With a Chief universally detested (for we have good authority for asserting, that, from one end of France to the other, Buonaparte is execrated by every class and description of his people), and surrounded by powers eager to assert their emancipation from his iron yoke, the French are awed by a servile senate, the abject slaves of their Tyrant, and by a legion of police spies, who invade domestic privacy, render the capital of the empire a close prison, and the whole country one vast inquisition. But by whom, and by what, are the neighbouring nations awed into a base acquiescence in all the mad ravings of the Usurper's insatiate ambition; and induced to remain passive, when their active efforts might restore them to their pristine independence? The answer to this question would lead us into a field of inquiry, much too vast to be comprised within the limits of an Historical Sketch.

In

In such perfect security, however, does this Corsican Adventurer, who has so much reason to tremble for his existence, feel, or affect to feel, himself, that from his palace at Berlin he thunders out his anathemas against all who dare to dispute his universal supremacy. Against this country in particular, which seems incessantly to haunt his imagination, to be the subject of his daily meditations, and the topic of his nightly dreams, is all the fury of his vindictive and relentless mind directed. First, invading the territory of neutral states, in violation of the law of nations, and of every right but that of power, he seizes all the productions of English manufactures, or of the English soil, with the spirit, and with the rapacity, of the leader of a desperate banditti, and prohibits their future importation under the severest penalties. Never, since the first civilization of the barbarous hordes which erst monopolized the most fertile parts of Europe, was the tyrant's maxim,

"Sic volo, sic jubeo, stat pro ratione voluntas,”

so fully exemplified. Next, in a paroxysm of impotent rage, he declares all the ports belonging to the British Monarchy in a state of blockade; be, who dares not send a single ship to sea, whose vessels are closely imprisoned in his harbours, and who cannot dispatch a cock-boat beyond their mouths without the permission of a British commander! this, indeed, is telam imbelle sine itu. Rash and insensate Tyrant! thou art stimulated by the accomplishment of acts greatly beyond thy hopes; to attempt achieve. ments more greatly beyond thy power! Even as to his efforts totally to exclude all British produce from the ports of the Continent, he will find more difficulty than he expects in rendering them effectual. Indeed for that, as for his success in most other instances, he must be indebted more to the weakness of his enemies than to his own strength. Nor is he aware that even his success, by reducing those enemies to the necessity of opening other channels for their commerce, will be less detrimental to them than to his own miserable subjects. But neither the interest nor the happiness of friends or of foes can have the smallest influence over the mind of a senseless marauder, who has the profligate impudence to proclaim to the world his intention to restore the barbarism of the early ages. Let this ruffian, who ought to be considered as a general outlaw, for whose head a reward ought to be offered by all nations who have a common interest in the destruction of an avowed enemy of the human race, speak for himself. In his message to his Senate from Berlin, of the 21st of November, he says, "We have placed the British Islands in a state of blockade, and ordered measures to be taken against them which excite a struggle in our heart." A blessed struggle between fear and rage! the only struggle of which that heart is capable whence issued the bloody mandates which con. signed five thousand Turks at Jaffa to massacre, in cold blood; and many hundreds of Frenchmen, who had bravely fought bis battles, to an untimely death by poison, in his cowardly retreat from Acre-deeds which should be engraven in characters of adamant, as affording an useful lesson to the Present age, and a salutary warning to future times!" It has cost us the pain of a victory * to render the interest of private individuals dependent

On

* Not having the Moniteur to refer to, we cannot ascertain the accuracy of the translation; but we incline to believe that the passage is not accu b 3 rately

xii

Historical Sketch of the State of Europe.

on the disputes of Kings, and, after so many years of civilization, to return to those principles which characterize the barbarism of the first ages of nations.””

In this same message the Usurper declares his firm resolution to conclude no peace with this country, and not to evacuate the Prussian terri tories, until we shall consent to restore the Colonial Possessions which we have conquered from him and from his Vassals. Here again he displays the impotence of his rage: these Colonies he can never wrest from us;~` nor will any Minister dare to restore them, without either the restoration of Lewis the XVIIIth to the Throne of his Ancestors, or the return of the Through the greater part of this mesFrench within their ancient limits. sage, his usual cant of lying hypocrisy is manifest ;--but the stavish Senate, in their answer, exceed their master, both in hypocrisy and in im. piety. These impious minions of a wretch stained with more crimes than ever yet debased the nature of an individual, who in the face of the world renounced the blessed Redeemer of mankind-addressed him in the language of adoration, and even of horrible blasphemy! compare him to that Redeemer! There is not, it may boldly be averred, in any other nation upon earth, a body of men who would set their hands to so profane a composition. But the language of France seems to be the native language of ser. vility; as Frenchmen appear to delight in blasphemy. It may, then, afford some mortification to the excessive vanity of the Corsican to learn, that the addresses to his worthy predecessor, Robespierre, the hero of his day, were equally adulatory, and equally blasphemous, with those which have been directed to him. The same tone and the same spirit inspired the Republican Frenchmen of 1792 and the Imperial Frenchmen of 1806. By the former, Robespierre was declared to be "aussi aimable par son ca. mon apôtre;" at ano. rattere qu'admirable par ses talens;”—“ un homme eminemment sensible, One while he was termed " humain et bienfaisant. ther, "le messie que l'eternel nous a promis pour reformer toute chose."The vile Senators of Napoleone cannot go farther; they are deprived even of the poor merit of originality; and are reduced to the degraded state of servile copyists; while the Usurper himself must be compelled to acknowledge, that all his exertions, and great indeed have they been, to establish his pre-eminence in crime, have been inadequate to ensure for his vanity a pre-eminence of adulation! Any analysis of the Message and of the Answer, which we quoted, and which will make a conspicuous figure in The task too, is rendered the annals of revolutionary France, would occupy more space than, consist. ently, can be allotted to it in a Cursory View. in some measure unnecessary, by the unanimity of opinion which, happily, prevails at present in Great Britain, respecting the principles and the conduct of the government of Buonaparte.

Unless the force of Russia, united with the scanty remnant of the Prusstan army, succeed in completing that destruction which disease has begun, in the French ranks; or, at least, carry on a most active and successful warfare during the winter, the advantages which the Usurper will have

rately given. Probably, instead of the pains of a victory, we should read the trouble of a victory-li peine d'une vidoire. Indeed, the whole of the passage, as it stands in all the London papers, is scarcely intelligible.

gained,

gained, even if he shall be ultimately compelled to evacuate the countries which he now occupies, in Poland and in Prussia, will be highly important. By fixing his quarters in a foreign country, he pays and subsists his troops at the expence of the enemy; while he replenishes his exhausted treasures by unbounded plunder. It is this system of making their enemies defray the whole cost of the war, which has been pursued by the French Generals from the dawn of the Revolution to the present moment. And so long as they shall be able to carry it on, it will be the interest, as it is the policy of their Government, to wage war with all the Powers of the Continent. That this is a most serious evil, will not be disputed ;-the power to remove it certainly exists; but the will to exercise that power is more than doubtful.

Such is the general aspect which the Continent presents at the opening of the new year; for the conduct of the subordinate States, of Holland on the one side, and Sweden on the other, the former exhibiting a low, servile, and degraded race, subject to the will of a lawless upstart, the latter exhibiting the noble spectacle of a bold and loyal people, seconding the gallant exertions of their high spirited and legitimate Sovereign, is comparatively but of little consequence. But there exists, or rather there did exist another power, which in better days, was wont to set an example to the Continental states, and to be, in some sort, the arbiter of nations ; -a power which, even in later years, had displayed her generosity, ma. nifested her prowess, and rendered her name respected.-Then she was governed by statesmen of comprehensive minds, and vigorous intellects, who had the wisdom to conceive, and the spirit to execute "deeds of noble daring and of high emprize." Alas! how are the mighty fallen! In vain we cast our eyes around us to descry this power ;-she mocks our sight; she eludes our grasp; but, in her stead uprises modern Britain. In truth, it is impossible to recognize, in the public conduct of the British Government, during the last nine months, that power, which, under the luminous guidance of a Chatham or a Pitt, mide her thunders resound in every quarter of the globe, and established her ascendancy in every Court in Europe. On the accession of the prc ent Ministers to the government of the country, it was promised by the former Conductor of the political department of this work, to judge them by their measures alone; giving them commendation, where their attention to the welfare of the State seemed to deserve it, and free'y censuring them when inattentive to its inter.sts. Such is the principle by which every friend to truth and justice must be guided; and is the principle by which we pledge ourselves to be guided, in all our animadversions on the public characters of public men. And here, let us enter our solemn protest against that monstrous doctrine, which men eminent in the noble profession of the law have not blushed to avow-that, "any thing, spoken, written, or printed, uncomfortable to the feelings of an; min or woman," is a lib l. If this, indeed, were law, what would become of our boasted liberty of the press? It would be a mere name, a shadow; vox et preæterea nihil, a vain and empty sound; an insulting mockery;-that keeps the word of promise to the car, and breaks it to the sense." Nay, it would be worse than an imaginary bencfit; it would be a real evil;-for it would hold out temptations to freedom of discussion; and inflict punishment for yielding to them; it would operate as a snare to the unwary ;-as a lure to the ingenuous ;-it would b 4 offer